The crack of the whip('s pate!)
"Never had a man stay in the house", says Fingen, M.P., ruefully, "who so cut up the lawn with his head, or indented the gravel with his elbows and his knees."
Evidently I was mistaken about goff. Cycling's the thing in Scotland.
Goasyoucan, Inverness-shire, Saturday.—Wrong again. Not goff nor cycling is the thing to do in Scotland. It's stalking. Soon learn that great truth at Goasyoucan. The hills that encircle the house densely populated with stags. To-day three guns grassed nine, one a royal. This the place to spend a happy day, crouching down among the heather awaiting the fortuitous moment. Weather no object. Rain or snow out you go, submissive to guidance and instruction of keeper; by comparison with whose tyranny life of the ancient galley-slave was perfect freedom.
Consummation of human delight this, to lie prone on your face amid the wet heather, with the rain pattering down incessantly, or the snow pitilessly falling, covering you up flake by flake as if it were a robin and you a babe in the wood. Mustn't stir; mustn't speak; if you can conveniently dispense with the operation, better not breathe. Sometimes, after morning and greater part of afternoon thus cheerfully spent, you may get a shot; even a stag. Also you may not; or, having attained the first, may miss the latter. At any rate you have spent a day of exhilarating delight.
Stalking is evidently the thing to do in Scotland. It's a far cry to the Highlands. Happily there is Arthur's Seat by Edinburgh town where beginners can practise, and old hands may feign delight of early triumphs.
